Spring Time Means Rhubarb…

May 23, 2016

Spring is here…I guess.  In our neck of the woods, we have had rain almost every day for weeks.  Due to the rain and cool weather, my garden in town is not looking good.  I’m ashamed to even show pictures, it looks so bad.  As usual, I grew most of my tomato plants from seeds, but they look pretty sad.  We did buy some plants from a local greenhouse nursery because Charming wanted to introduce a few new heirloom varieties for seed-saving purposes.  Although those plants looked good when we purchased them, they now look as sad as my home-grown ones.  Since tomatoes thrive on sunshine and hot temperatures, about the only thing we can do is wait for the sun to shine and the temperatures to go up.

Our garden at the farm is mainly for experimental purposes only.  I’ve planted a few things there just to see what will grow well.  So far, I’ve planted potatoes, tomatoes, beets, pumpkins, and onion seeds.  (Most people say that it’s difficult to grow onions from seed, but for some strange reason we’ve always had good luck with onion seeds.)  Because the weather at the farm is always a few degrees cooler than it is where we currently live, frost is a real possibility until late May or early June.  We found this to be true this past week when frost bit the fourteen tomato plants that I had planted the week before.  I think there’s a chance that four or five of them may survive, but we realize that gardening at the farm will largely be trial and error for the first few years.

On the bright side, the previous owners of the farm had planted quite a few things that may be of help with my soap-making and salve-making hobbies.  I’ve recently discovered that we have a comfrey plant beside the porch and a rather large patch of mint in the garden.  Since the garden is not an ideal place for mint (it can be invasive), I’ll have to get it out of there and move it to a better location.  Perhaps by the cottage, which is beside the river, would be a better place or maybe in a large container.  I have plans to try to turn some of this mint into hard candy that can be used as cough drops.  I’ll try the comfrey (along with other herbs) in a batch of soap or salve as comfrey is a healing herb.

In addition to these herbs, I was delighted to find a large patch of rhubarb in another corner of the garden.  Charming had plowed the garden early in the spring just to test out the used cultivator we had purchased.  We were amazed a few weeks ago when we noticed the rhubarb growing, as the cultivator had dug into the ground about a foot.  So I’m figuring we may have lost some rhubarb due to the cultivator, but this determined patch demands to be cut every time we go to the farm.  So far, I’ve gotten about eight quart-sized freezer bags, each full of 1-inch sized pieces.  The rhubarb is a beautiful mix of red and green and it seems to grow and grow and grow and grow.  By itself, rhubarb is a bit too tart for most tastes, so in recipes it’s often paired with strawberries or raspberries.  (Luckily, we also discovered that we have a big raspberry bush next to the house...which will also need to be moved.)  Rhubarb provides a slight tang to compliment the sweetness of other berries.  Right now, in celebration of spring, there are rhubarb recipes in magazines as well as on the internet.  I’ve tried recipes for Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble, Strawberry Rhubarb Slab Pie, and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp and the rhubarb never disappoints.  So I give a hearty, “Hello Spring and Welcome Rhubarb” every time I taste this scrumptious gift from nature!

The mint patch that is growing in our garden.

 

Although invasive, mint really is pretty and smells wonderful.

The rhubarb patch is 5 or 6 plants big...more than enough for the coming year.

Pretty to look at and makes great desserts...yum, yum!

Jax and Charming removing interior windows from the house.

Jax willingly submits to his daily "farm tick inspection".

Charming in the process of window removal.

Now we can accurately measure for replacement windows.

2nd half of the shed floor will be connected after we finish the final row of piers.

Charming let me remove the wood forms from the concrete piers...nice!

Paving The Way...

May 13, 2016

This past week, Charming and I have been making some concrete progress…literally concrete.  A post or two ago, I shared pictures of Charming digging 2-foot holes for the shed that he/we are building.  This past week, we’ve been mixing concrete to pour into those holes…that hold the posts…that hold up the shed.  (Sounds almost like a round of “Teensy, Weensy, Spider”, doesn’t it?)

We worked out quite the assembly line to get the concrete pouring accomplished.  For each hole, Charming would lift the 80 lb. bag of concrete, open it, and pour it into the cement mixer (a big metal orange tub-like thing, powered by electricity…thank God!...that mixes the cement with water).  While he was doing this, I filled up a plastic jug with water and placed it beside the cement mixer.  I then moved the wheelbarrow into place in front of the mixer.  By the time that was done, Charming had emptied the bag of concrete and thrown the bag out of the work area.  So while he was adding the water into the concrete mixer, I rolled up the paper bag then stuffed it into a large trash bag.  Over the period of a few days, we each repeated these steps 45 times (45 bags of concrete!). 

Luckily for us, we found that we really do work well together.  We each had our tasks to complete and the process seemed to go fairly quickly.  When each day was over we were both tired, but we had actual results to show for our work.

On another, but (I think) important subject, a few weeks ago I went to see my doctor.  For a good while now, I’ve been having some symptoms that seemed to be getting worse as time went on.  Prior to the appointment I made a list of all of my symptoms so that I wouldn’t leave anything out when I talked with the doctor.  Those symptoms included:  significant joint pain (especially hips, knees and shoulders); extreme tiredness (I would get out of breath after just a few minutes of work and would almost immediately start yawning whenever I sat down to rest, but yet had trouble sleeping at night); my heart had also recently started to skip beats; muscle weakness in my thighs and upper arms; and sudden sharp pains in my feet and ankles.  Charming had had Lyme Disease about four years ago with similar symptoms, so I wanted to rule that out before exploring other possible explanations for the symptoms (bad things like lupus and/or rheumatoid arthritis).  Charming and I go to the woods each year to cut fire wood because we heat our house with wood during the winter.  Almost without fail, we each end up pulling at least one tick off of us every time…guess we’re “tick magnets”.

At the appointment, I rattled off my first few symptoms.  The doctor interrupted and said, “Sounds a lot like Lyme to me.”  My doctor is pretty sharp and not like so many doctors who will brush off their patients’ symptoms, thinking that it’s all in their heads.  (We women, especially, get a lot of that kind of attitude from some doctors.)  He said he would request labs for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis in addition to the Lyme test, but if all the test results were negative that he would probably treat me for Lyme Disease any way because I had so many symptoms of the disease.  All of the test results came back negative, but he prescribed Doxycycline, based on my symptoms.  So I’ve been on the medication for about 2 ½ weeks now and I am definitely feeling better.  The joint pain is much better now, my energy is coming back, and I’m sleeping better.  My heart still skips beats, but not nearly as often as it had been prior to starting the medication.  I’m praying that the progress continues, as Charming and I have only just begun to undertake the major work involved in getting our new place up and running. 

The only reason I mention this is because some of you may be having similar symptoms.  If so, it’s worth talking to your doctor about Lyme Disease.  I believe it is much more prevalent than people realize.  If you have extra time, check out this link on the Internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAcfHS51VEk.  It a bit from a video called, "Under Our Skin".  Charming and I watched the entire video after he tested positive for Lyme.  It is a scary disease and almost everyone is at risk.  You might also want to check out this video about Lyme Disease https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFMwMTuJRkw.  I just thank God for having a great doctor who understands the symptoms and seriousness of this disease.  Here’s hoping you never have first-hand Lyme Disease experience!

Concrete was mixed in the mixer and then poured into the wheelbarrow.

24" holes were dug, then the post, rebar and wire cage were added before the pour.

Filling the hole with concrete.

Charming uses a concrete vibrator to remove air, which makes the concrete stronger.

He then built forms for the concrete piers...

And placed the forms around the wooden post, before filling with more concrete.

A trowel was used to slope the concrete.  Forms will be removed when concrete is dry.